When I step into the kitchen from the garage, I am hit by a wave of delicious. The air is thick and humid, as if savory, microscopic turkey particles are fighting nitrogen for dominance in the atmosphere. It’s intoxicating. My salivary glands are going bonkers.
“Sweet mother,” Dad murmurs, walking in behind me and pulling in a deep breath through his nose. His expression is borderline inappropriate.
“Hey, guys!” Mom says, looking over her shoulder from the potatoes she’s scrubbing in the sink. She’s got her favorite apron on—one Dad got for her that’s bright pink and covered in a pattern of Maryland blue crabs. And she looks equal parts frazzled and ecstatic—she frets and complains for at least a week leading up to today, but once she starts, she’s like a machine.
“Smells amazing, Mom.”
“Thank you. Don’t touch anything. How was practice?”
“Good,” I say, lingering a moment longer before retreating from the kitchen.
When I step into the living room, I find Tabby sitting on the floor with Murray, watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV.
“Hey,” I say, trying to look completely normal, like everything’s the same as it always is, which it’s not, which probably means I look like a complete idiot.
“Hey, Matty,” she says, looking back and smiling from where she sits in front of the TV, cross-legged, with Murray in her lap.
Murray jumps up then and bolts toward me, clutching what appears to be a large, pointy carrot in his tiny hand.
“Matty! Matty! It’s snowing!”
“Hey, Murray B.,” I say, noogying his head when he crashes into my legs. “It is snowing. What’s with the carrot?”
“He jacked it from your mom,” Tabby says. “Snowman nose.”
“It’s not sticking to the ground yet. You’re a little early.”
Murray runs to the front window and looks out, hands and carrot pressed to the glass.
“Can we go play outside?” he asks, entranced by the swirling flakes outside the window.
“Not right now,” Mom calls from the kitchen. I’m guessing by the way she says it that this is not the first time Murray’s made this request.
“Okay,” he says. His shoulders slump, but he remains at the window. A moment later, he turns to walk back to Tabby and sits down in her lap. Just like that, he’s back into the parade, transfixed by a Snoopy balloon bobbing high above a Manhattan avenue.
“Your dad working again?” I ask Tabby.
“Yeah. They offered him triple time. I told him to do it; we could blow it all on sushi over the weekend.”
“Good call.”
“And this way I get your mom’s Thanksgiving, too.”
“Double whammy.”
I’m still working hard to keep my mind in the present. Seeing Tabby with Murray—Tabby the way she’s always been—helps. It’s still a struggle, though. The projector lights flicker on in my head, flashes of still shots I don’t want to be seeing.
Mom pokes her head in the room. “I don’t know if you know this, but you smell. Go wash the stink off before Gramma and Grampa get here.”
“Love you, too, Mom.”
“You guys doing okay?” she says to Tabby and Murray.
Murray turns. “Yeah, but can we go outside?”
Mom lowers her chin and looks at him.
“Okay,” Murray says, defeated again.
I know those guys were just being assholes. The rational part of me gets that it was guys BSing in the locker room, teammates ragging on one another, because that’s just what we do. And right now, Branson’s the obvious target, sniffing around a freshman.
I get that.
But what’s killing me is that when they walk out of that locker room, it becomes more than BS. They’re automatically going to see Tabby differently. Even if it’s just a dumb joke. Every time one of them sees her, that thought is going to pop into his head. And he’s going to wonder. Fuck, I’m doing it right now, and I hate myself for it. I know better. I know Tabby. The reality of Tabby hanging out with Murray down there should patch over the twisted images in my brain.
Meanwhile, the flawless perception of Branson goes unchanged.
What is he doing? This guy could have any girl he wants. Why a freshman? Why Tabby?
I step out of the shower, the bathroom filled with steam. I was in there longer than I thought. I wipe the steam from the mirror with my towel.
Well, if you could have any girl you wanted, who would you pick?
“In here, Matty,” I hear Tabby say when I come out of my room, decked out in a fresh pair of sweats in preparation for the day. I find Tabby in Murray’s room. The stuffed animals are out in full force, lined up along the main boulevard of Murray’s town rug.
“We’re having a parade!” Murray says, beaming up at me from behind his wall of animals.
“We’ve got one all picked out for you,” Tabby says with a grin, patting the head of a stuffed giraffe sporting a polka-dot ribbon tied around his neck like a giant bow tie.
One time. One time I called the giraffe Bernard and gave him this awful British accent, and ever since, Bernard has been my permanent role. There’s no version of Animals! Animals! Animals! that doesn’t include Bernard the British Giraffe. Not that I’m lobbying for new roles. But it’s not a good British accent: all Bernard ever says is “ ’Ello, guv-nah!” and asks if we’ve got whatever weird food I can remember from the Harry Potter movies. Awful.
“Come on, Matty!” Murray says, grabbing Bernard and holding him out for me to assume my role.
“Hold on a minute,” I say. “I need to go steal some food first. I’ll be right back.”
“Make it shnappy, mishter,” Tabby says through the gap-toothed beaver puppet on her hand, waving a furry little fist in my direction as I grin and retreat down the steps.
I find Mom and Dad both in the kitchen, Mom feeding Dad a hunk of stuffing and kissing him.
“Mmmmm. Hottest kiss ever,” Dad says.
“Gross,” I say, heading to the refrigerator.
“Go away,” he says. Mom slaps him playfully on the chest and turns back to the stove. Dad’s changed out of pajamas into jeans, though he’s still wearing his old Ship sweatshirt and slippers.
“Nice pants upgrade, Dad.”
“Likewise,” he replies, nodding at my sweats. Holidays are casual in the Wainwright house.
“I made you a sandwich, sweetie,” Mom says, pointing to a plate on the counter next to me. “I know you’re probably hungry. You can’t have any stuffing yet, though.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I can ever eat stuffing again.”
Which is a total lie, of course. Besides being an arts-and-crafts Jedi, Mom is also an unparalleled stuffing Jedi. Like, the Yoda of stuffing making. None of that Stove Top garbage or those lame, prepackaged bread cubes that turn to mush. No, Mom uses some crusty sourdough she gets from the bakery and mixes in sausage and apples and some other crazy stuff, and then makes her ridiculous homemade gravy to go on top. We force her to make triple batches so we have plenty for leftovers. I think Dad and I both get stuffing boners at the mention of it.
Well.
Let’s add Dad boner to the list of things I now need to scrub from my memory. Thank you, brain. Big day for you.
I inhale my sandwich in a few bites and leave Mom and Dad in the kitchen. Bernard is waiting for me when I sit down on Murray’s floor, set apart from the line of animals he and Tabby have arranged.
Murray holds back a smile, waiting.
“ ’Ello, guv-nah!” Bernard yells to Murray and the parade line in general. “Have you got any bangers and mash?”
As always, one of the animals happens to have whatever Bernard asks for on hand. “This is for Bernard,” Murray says through an old stuffed bear to Tabby’s beaver puppet, which now has a tiny T-shirt pulled over its head, its face poking out of the neck hole.
“Here’sh your bangersh and mash!”
“Right-o, guv-nah!” Then in my own voice, “What’s with the T-shirt?”
“He’s into Ewok cosplay.”
“Right.”
A few minutes later, when the parade animals start asking each other if they’re allowed to play outside in the snow, and if they’ve ever made a snowman, and whether they’ve ever made snow angels or had a snowball fight, we give in to Murray.
“You wanna go outside, Murray?” Tabby asks, smiling and shaking her head.
“Okay!” Murray replies, as though this was Tabby’s unprompted suggestion, and takes off out of his room and down the steps.
“He’s a persistent little bugger,” Tabby says, sliding the beaver-wok off her hand and getting to her feet. I stand, too. “You were never like that,” she says, nudging me with her elbow as we follow Murray out the door.
I smile. I have no idea if that was a compliment or a quick point-of-fact memory. And before my filter can catch it, I say, “I was just happy to follow your lead.”
Good gracious.
My inner romantic-movie screenwriter applauds and waves his little beret in the air, just as my inner realist punches him in the wiener. How the hell did that one slip through?
Tabby glances back at me on the steps, eyebrows raised. “Ish that sho?”
“Mom, we’re going to take Murray out front to play!” I call, a little too loud.
Mom pokes her head in again, giving the stink eye to Murray, who’s refusing to look up at her: he remains focused solely on Tabby as she pulls a hat down over his head and helps him zip his coat. This is a smart little dude we’re dealing with here.
Mom sighs and shakes her head.
“Are you guys sure you’re okay with that turkey?” she says to Tabby and me.
“We’re good,” I say.
“All right. Gramma and Grampa will be here soon, anyway.”
I shoot baskets with half-numb fingers—actively restraining myself from digging them into my pits in front of Tabby—while Murray alternates between running around in circles, cheering on the snow, and standing still with his head up and his mouth open, letting the snowflakes land on his tongue. The fact that none of it is sticking to the ground has not dampened his enthusiasm. I don’t have the heart to tell him that we don’t get real snow in south-central Pennsylvania until January. Murray’s got that carrot on standby. And honestly, his excitement is infectious. I can’t help but cheer on the snow with him. You know, in my head.
Tabby stands in the middle of the driveway in the crocheted Franklin hat and her old gymnastics team jacket, the gravitational center of Murray’s orbit. She rubs her hands for warmth, smiling at Murray’s routine, and opens her mouth to the sky along with him.
When I block out the locker room from this morning, this is another perfect Tabby day—the kind of lazy, no-worries, just-hanging-out days I’ve enjoyed with her my entire life. But it feels numbered now, and I hate that I have to pretend part of this day didn’t happen for it to feel how it used to feel.
“Matt, you look like you’re in pain.”
“What? No, sorry. I was spacing out, trying to warm up my hands. It’s freezing out here.”
“Why don’t you stick them in your armpits, like you usually do?”
“Right.”
Right then, the land-yacht pulls up to the curb in front of the house, and, just like every time, Murray makes a beeline for the car for Gramma to scoop him up in a hug. Though this time she has to avoid getting her eyeball impaled by Murray’s carrot.
Grampa steps onto the driveway, decked out in his standard uniform, grinning at Murray. I don’t know where he finds sweats that big.
“Grampa! It’s snowing!”
“Hey, how ’bout that?” he says, holding out his palms and looking up to the sky, as though he’s just now noticing. “How’s my Murray?” He kisses the top of his head, then pretends to take a chomp of Murray’s carrot.
Tabby leans into my arm, watching them. I don’t think she realizes she’s doing it. But I know she’s waiting for her turn.
“All right, Tabby’s here!” Grampa booms on cue, and I swear, I can feel her face break open into that huge grin.
“Hi, Grampa Wainwright,” she says as he walks up to us.
“What’s shaking, T-Bone? Keeping my boys here out of trouble?”
“Doing my best.”
Grampa tugs the strings of her earflaps, turns to me, and grins.
“I’ve got my turkey-eatin’ pants on,” he says, hooking his thumbs inside the elastic waistband of his sweatpants and stretching it out in front of him.
“Right there with you, Grampa,” I say, mirroring his move with my own waistband.
Grampa will use this line at least forty-seven more times today.
Tabby will laugh every time.
Naturally, Grampa adores her, too.
Later that evening, after all the dishes have been cleaned and the leftovers are brought back out for turkey sandwiches and more stuffing—allowing Grampa to work in a few last references to his turkey-eatin’ pants—Tabby decides to head home. Mom loads her down with food for her dad whenever he finally gets home from work, which Tabby tells her should be pretty soon.
“Matty, why don’t you walk Tabby over?” Mom calls from the kitchen, where she stacks Tupperware containers in a grocery bag for Tabby’s dad. “It’s dark out there.”
I roll off the couch, decide not to mention that Tabby lives right across the street and that we live in a cul-de-sac. Tabby hands me the overstuffed bag of leftovers, nudges my arm, and opens the door. “Following my lead?” she says, grinning, and steps outside.
“Just to the curb,” I say, trying to hide my embarrassment. “Then it’s gravy-mugging time.”
“Try it, buddy. I will record your death and rewatch it over leftover stuffing.”
I smile and follow her into the dark.
The flurries have picked up again, and I can see a light dusting of snow covering Grampa’s car. As we make our way across the circle, Tabby checks her phone and looks up the street, but doesn’t say anything.
“Hot date tonight?”
Oh.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Shit.
“So your dad will be home soon?”
“Yeah, he should be,” she says. Maybe she’s battling turkey coma, too, but she seems a little off. Nervous maybe. And the morning comes flooding back into my brain.
When we get to her door, she slides her key into the lock, and again glances up the street.
“I can get those,” she says, holding her door open with her foot and reaching for the bag of leftovers. She looks up and smiles. “Thanks for today, Matty. Tell your mom thanks again. Happy Thanksgiving.”
I so badly want to keep dragging this day out, to find some excuse to stand here on this dark stoop with her and watch the snow fall. Instead, I return her smile and hold the door as she takes the bag inside.
“See ya, Tabby. Happy Thanksgiving.”
When I’m partway across the circle, I look back. I can still see Tabby inside the front door, looking down at her phone, the glow from the screen highlighting the profile of her face. Wherever she is has nothing to do with me.
I trail my fingers across the hood of Grampa’s car, a light skiff of snow falling to the curb when it runs off the edge. On the driveway, I reach up and swat the net of my basketball hoop as I pass underneath. I look up into the dark sky, watch the flakes disappear in my breath, and head back inside.
When Gramma and Grampa leave a little while later, I look out across the circle. The black Accord is parked across the street.